May 18th, WKA Ohio Speedway Pavement Divisional Series at Barberton
Results
Briggs Lite: 4 entries
Qualified: 2nd, Feature, 20 laps: 2nd
Animal Medium: 2 entries
Qualified: 1st (time disallowed), Feature, 20 laps: DNF
Animal Heavy: 2 entries
Qualified: 2nd, Feature, 20 laps: DNS
Pro Lite: 3 entries
Qualified: 3rd, Feature, 20 laps: 3rd
This week-end we headed for Barberton Speedway to compete in the first race of the WKA-OSPDS. We took advantage of the practice day on Saturday to unveil our much anticipated Dover Power Briggs Animal Over-head Valve motor, mounted on a Rage Silencer chassis, clad with an M&M Performance
body, and sporting the colors of Chuck's Custom Kart Shop. Let me tell you, it was well worth the wait. We were very thankful for that practice day as well because we quickly found out Sunday, it was hard enough to know what kart was supposed to be racing! Anyway, I'm going the update into two
segments, flathead and Animal, so things aren't quite so confusing.
Flathead:
Saturday we made a couple practice runs with our flathead, the style of motor we've always used, and felt that we were pretty good on our set-up. The Firestone tires WKA mandates didn't seem to affect the kart's handling much at all. If anything, they helped us out. On Sunday, we didn't practice too much having our data from the day before. The day was a little cooler and cloudier, but all in all the track conditions were relatively the same. I would have liked more sun, but you play with the hand you're dealt. We did some mock qualifying runs during our practice, and we were very happy with the results. Briggs Lite was the first class to make qualifying runs. Thankfully, the sun had come out which only meant more speed. We ended up 2nd on the time charts, but couldn't really take a rest since the Animal was the next class to qualify. Anyway, they also offered a Pro Lite class, where you win just money. We had to qualify for that as well. Luckily though, it was the last class to go. The only thing we did to the kart was drain the fuel. We have to do that because WKA uses a pump-around system. Simply put, a community fuel source so everyone uses the same fuel. We ended up 3rd for the Pro Lite race. So, with qualifying over, we were ready to race. We made some minor adjustments so the kart would go 20 laps because the motor was running a little hot in qualifying. We had 4 entered in our class, but 5 karts raced with us. There was only one kart entered in the Heavy class, so he decided to race with us. We had
a pretty clean start and quickly fell in line behind the leader. He started to inch away in first couple laps before someone pulled inside of me. It was the kart that was entered in the Heavy class! He weighed 50 lbs more than us, but was definitely faster. He quickly tracked down the leader, and both of the them checked out. It was a pretty uneventful race from there as we came across the line in 2nd. For the Pro Lite feature we started 3rd out of 3. The other entrants were the Briggs Lite winner and that same fast Heavy. I think he took some weight off for this race though. He started on the pole and just ran away from it. We did make a minor adjustment to the kart from the Briggs Lite feature which did help, but I was definitely tuckered out by that final race.
Animal:
I guess I should start from the beginning on this one. During registration time, the other guy with an Animal came over and asked if we would run a specific Heavy class. He even offered to pay the entry-fee, so I said sure. The reason he wanted a specific Heavy class was so he could use his divisional points towards his national points. So being nice, we decided to help them out. Now, it was our understanding that there would be a class at Medium weight, 350, and Heavy weight, 375. We would run both classes at 350 and would take the DQ in the Heavy class giving him the win and the points he wanted. Well, knowing the scales at Barberton are ALWAYS iffy, we checked our weight during practice time. We had the kart set-up how we wanted it, had little to no fuel in it, and weighed in at 351, exactly what our scales said. So, with a FULL tank of fuel, and after getting directly out of the other kart to come to the Animal, we qualified with a pretty fast time. When we first came across the scales we weighed something like, 338. I don't know HOW considering we didn't change anything, and we had MORE fuel it. So, we took it off the scales and tried it again. This time, we were something like 342. They said we could try one more time, but the next class was coming off. We went aside until the
next class was cleared, and this time weighed 348. So, we were under-weight, and our fast time was disallowed. No big deal though since there were two karts in the class. Our next qualifying run was for the Heavy class. We had added some weight in between, but only enough to get us to 350. We made our run, came off, and weighed 351. Well, the other Animal guy came up and said, "You're light, I thought we agree on a 360 weight." I told him, "Since when, we were going for 350, the medium
weight." Well, there was a definite communication break-down between us and the WKA Divisional Staff. Like I said before, we understood two classes. They intended the Animal class to be a combined Medium-Heavy at an in-between weight of 360. Of course, this wasn't published anywhere. The other guy wanted a specific class for Heavy which was fine, but it would also be a 360 weight. Now, this made absolutely NO SENSE to me. Why run two races at the same weight? He was going to get the win in Heavies no matter what because we would take the weight DQ. But, we went back and put 10 more pounds of lead on the kart. By that I mean, we just slapped it on, didn't even put it back on our scales to check our percentages. We really didn't care at that point. Well, after a quick turn-around from our Briggs Lite feature, we went right to the Animal Medium, or combined or whatever they want to call it, feature. The start was pretty even, and we took a quick lead. About two laps in though, the he passed me going into the first turn, and I settled in behind him. Now, the Animal is a COMPLETELY different type of motor. You actually have to DRIVE the kart with the throttle and steering wheel, unlike the flathead. There is so much more throttle response, and just pure torque that you're dealing with. It's a
rip snortin' beast that acts like it just wants to tear the tires off of it. What I'm trying to say is, a lot comes down to how the driver is driving the kart. Now, I don't know about the other guy, but I had to let off the gas, turn the kart, but I was able to pick the throttle up right away getting a great run off the turns. I stayed behind him for a couple laps before I got a great run out of the 2nd turn and got past him. I protected the line out of 4, but didn't receive a bump, so I didn't think I cramped him too much. We stayed in the lead then, running as hard as could. As I picked up the throttle in 3 and 4 coming down for five to go, the engine started to bog. I quickly checked the gauges and got my hand up
letting the other guy know I had problems. The gauges showed nothing out of the ordinary, and I started to let off. About the time I made it to the flag stand though, it blew up. Yep, the Animal was dead. I felt something hit my leg which was actually a little piece of the engine block. There's about a quarter-sized hole in it right now. Some people thought we over-rev'd it, but we weren't anywhere near the revs our engine builder said to never go over. I think it was just a bad part. So, needless to say we didn't run the other Animal class. The other guy did get his points because our Animal day was done. That Animal is awesome though. It wants to shake the living daylights out of everything, including the driver, but the ride is well worth it.
Well, that was pretty much our week-end. We did break a few other thing besides the Animal motor though. Most of them were a result of its ferociousness though. The driver is definitely sore, but we had a couple things vibrate loose, a bracket break, some weights come loose, nothing else major though. It was a great week-end except for the being rushed to make everything. We tried the "Schneider Karting Marathon" with two karts, and I don't think we did too bad. We definitely need help at the track though when we're running two karts. Hint, hint to anyone who would like to help out sometime. I was happy with the results though. There was nothing we could really do about the Animal, and the flathead ran as well as can be expected. We're definitely in the fine tuning issues with the flathead at Barberton. Our next race will be at Barberton again on Sunday, May 25th. This is going to be a night race which should be pretty exciting. The kart count will probably be a little higher because the regular Barberton crowd should be there. I have to thank Chuck's Custom Karting for helping us out when we needed it this week-end, Dover Power for the awesome motors and support, and Dr. Barrett, his wife Michelle, and two little girls for coming out to the track for some racing action and supporting us. It was good to see you guys again, and I hope everyone had fun!
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